The Equaliser
by AtheneMiranda
Summary: Cloud gets a mysterious - and mind-boggling - visitor...


At last! My first post! As such, reviews are MOST welcome.

It's kind of a surrealist thing - an FFVII world, a D&D concept, random Qabbalism because I felt like it, and a prop stolen straight from Baldur's Gate II. And some original characters from the inside of my own head - ignore Plato if you don't like him, he's just a surreal concept who's been stuck in my brain for two years…

Quick guide to Hebrew:   
Assiah - the "real world"   
Atziluth - the higher plane of primordial ideas and stuff   
seraph - an angel of Geburah, ie destruction.   
the fall of Tipareth - kinda means when all the primordial bits became real, and thus tainted

Inspired by and dedicated to AshRose.

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The Equaliser

**

It was late afternoon when they reached the town, and the huge sun had warmed the ground to a nice, comfortable temperature, soothing on both her thin-soled boots and his spread toes. Sand shifted over the stones in the strong sea-breeze. Liriel paused by the bridge and examined the scroll she carried.

"So this is the place?" Plato the Chicken looked up at her, watching her grey eyes dart around the square. The wind ruffled her long white hair, disturbing the neat braids.

"Yes, he's here. It's that house there." She pushed her hair behind one pointed ear and tucked the scroll back in her belt. "Be careful, Plato. He's not going to be easy."

"They never are. I know how to stay out of the way." He scuttled along in the wake of her trailing black cloak, ducking down as the wind thrashed the fabric around. Liriel bent down and lifted him to her chest as they reached the steps. He huddled into the smooth leather, looking once more into her steely eyes. "So what did this one do?" he asked curiously.

"Saved the planet." she said grimly, her right hand brushing the ornate swordhilt at her left side. She set him down again and rapped on the door of the villa.

It was a while before it opened, to reveal a scene of some bustle. Computers clicked and whirred, people spoke in raised voices, and papers were scattered all over the room. The young man in the doorway blinked perplexedly at woman and chicken for a second. He wore a loose blue shirt and dark trousers, and he carried a knife in his belt. Blond bangs flopped all over his sweet, boyish face. "Er, can I…help you?" he managed eventually.

"Cloud Strife?" Liriel asked, in her sharpest 'business' voice.

"Yeah?"

"Oh, good." She drew the Equaliser out of its sheath with a gentle _hiss_. The blue blade glimmered in the sunlight, near transparent at the fine point, runes flashing red in the cleft down the middle, spreading a chill over the heat of the day. The hilt twisted round in an iron spiral, shaped for the hand of its wielder, the wielder who now raised it to the young man's chest. "We're here to kill you," she said, cold satisfaction in her voice.

***

I stared at her, probably gawking, trying to work out what the hell was going on. She held the huge sword in sixte, a stance that spoke of practise, and her intent was proven in the steady hand that levelled it at my chest. This didn't feel like a joke. I ran my eyes over her; black leather armour tightly strapped to the strong, graceful body, long white-blonde hair swept back over the shoulders, ice behind the eyes and power behind the blade. At a casual glance, her harlequin appearance could have reminded me of Sephiroth but there was none of his taint in her manner. There was no fire in her hands, and the grey gaze was as sane as the blue one I returned. This was deadly serious. She was waiting for an answer, and I wasn't at all sure what the question was. I shivered, feeling the summer heat drip away from the stifling air. "W-why?" I stuttered.

The chaos behind me had stilled and I could half-hear, half-sense, that Tifa had moved to my shoulder. My challenger hadn't moved an inch - either her sword was incredibly light or she was very strong indeed. She lifted an eyebrow slightly, as if my question was unexpected. "You're an extreme. You must be ended before you cause too much instability." _Ended?_

"What in _hell_-" murmured Tifa. The woman didn't react, but still held that elegant blade as if she were waiting for something.

"Who are you?" I spoke softly so as to keep my voice from shaking. She meets my eyes again, and that I did not turn away represents one of the greatest feats of will I have ever performed.

When she replied, it was like a statistic, a word solid as stone and sure as sundown. "Liriel." Still she stood, unmoving, silent, waiting -

Then it struck me. She was waiting for me. I stretched a hand toward the umbrella-stand, and my fingers closed around the hilt of the Ultima Weapon. I lifted the sword and drew it into a double-handed grip, feeling my heartbeats coming far too close together. The blade raised, touched hers with a _cling_, and she stepped back at last. A shake of her sword beckoned me out of the doorway.

***

There had been a time when elemental turbulence had gone unchecked in the Spheres, and it was not so long ago. Good and evil had collided and the earths had cracked beneath the unending conflicts. Odin and Hades would send their champions to battle, and whosoever fell would be avenged, and avenged again, until feud and blood-war spanned planets.

The stress was so great that the gods themselves began to seek stability over victory, and the anarchy still sucked ever harder at the fabric of Realities. Somewhere in the seething mass of will and doom an eye appeared, a tiny point of balance where the superposition of forces had left complete calm. From this haven arose an essence, and Liriel was formed.

She was as dark as she was light, as alive as she was dead. Where she walked the waves of discord were stilled and the tails of feud were severed. The gods watched and pondered as she laid her tendrils on the greatest, most twisted knot of strife and wove it into a sword like no other sword in the Spheres. Good and evil, law and chaos, love and hate and fear and courage met in her furnace and were neutralised into a metal as hard as souls. The gyroscope-hilt of the Equaliser was taken by the hand of Stability's corporeal avatar as she manifested into Assiah.

On she walked. The gods had chosen. The cause must be fought and the banner must be swung, but a slight must be cancelled, not returned, and a deed be negated never matched by its opposite. Otherwise there might be no Spheres left to rule.

An archdevil's ichor had sullied the blade, and several angels had wilted to dust at its tip. Mortals, too - those bold enough and high enough to scar the flesh of the cosmos were always rare, and by these later days Liriel had exorcised them to the brink of eradication. But there were times, like these, when Liriel the Equaliser had to demonstrate to the Spheres that the buck must stop somewhere.

(The chicken just keeps going, but there's not a lot to be done about _him_. He wasn't really there at all, but someone had to see it happening and who would be more impartial than a nonexistent philosophical chicken? At least he knew he wasn't real, instead of acting all pretentious like some collapsed logic loops I could mention…)

***

I touched the tip of the Ultima Weapon to the ground and swiftly raked the bracer Yuffie handed me up my right arm. "Cloud-" I met her frightened gaze. "Can't you just - tell her to go away or something? We're supposed to be rebuilding the planet for hell's sake…" She trailed off, yellow skin suddenly paling. "Oh Cloud…"

"I don't think she's come here to talk, Yuf." The eerie chill had seeped into my bones. Hers too; after all these months, that was the first time I ever saw the slayer of Emerald Weapon shiver.

The hand that clasped my shoulder was as strong as ever. I knew the touch of those long fingers, the rough feel of the skin, the very tempo of the pulse in her veins even through my clothes, and I turned and looked down at her upturned face. I didn't need to - every tiny detail was already engraved on my soul. "We'll be ready." I didn't have to ask what for; shared wisdom flashed between us faster and deeper even than thought. I brushed her cheek with my free hand.

"I'll make it," I murmured, searching her brown eyes, needing that confidence and steadfastness more than ever.

"For the Planet?" An eyebrow, smooth and dark, rose in what in any other situation might have been humour.

"No, Tifa" I whispered. The name was an injection of clarity and perspective, a focus and foundation together. "For you." Now I felt ready for this. I stepped outside and took my sword in a two-handed grip. The scintillating blue blade touched it again, and the empty expression swept over my body even as I studied hers. Shifting my weight forwards, I struck.

***

In fact, only an eyeblink had passed since Cloud Strife had joined the ranks of the dangerously influential, but Liriel had been heading for the Planet a while longer. The might of the various gods was near to equal, and they knew better than to invest too much power in a single concern, lest a rival should thwart it and all should be lost. Such caution is seldom lacking in the immortal. Hence a little-known but very fundamental law of reality; in any power-struggle, there is nothing more dangerous than mortality. An able, talented, self-willed mortal is far more than a match for a demigod.

Two deep thoughtwaves underlie this. Firstly, the mortal can suffer no worse than death. The Spheres are littered with the still-beating wreckage of rogue gods and fallen angels, beings who wail the nights away in fear of the vultures that stoop at dawn. Death, oft-called a curse, is a blessed talisman of eternal security. Second, the gods and those sent by the gods have the wisdom of Atziluth to guide their hands and minds, but a mortal's motivations are in comparison senseless. Thus a free man's actions are impulsive and unpredictable, traits strong as a shield in a holy war.

When a man with a soul of flame and a sword of diamond, who knew the guidance of none of those Above arose in Assiah and raised his hand to eternity, the gods in their palaces in the hearts of stars shivered. Their mutual seraph Liriel the Equaliser was drifting toward the rip, but she was running out of time.

Human, and less human, pawns strode bravely across the blighted lands and laid their wills against Sephiroth. While high Powers spoke and reflected, lower Powers began to act. One by one, in ever increasing seniority, they put their stakes in the lot of Avalanche until even the greatest were ranged against the dark angel-man who would be one of them.

And for the first time since the fall of Tipareth Bahamut and Hades fought side by side in celestial harmony, which proves another law, one that transcends the chasm betwixt Good and Evil; that beyond all feud and ideology, there is one thing that unites all Gods in purest wrath - a smartarse.

(And so Sephiroth fell, but why should she stop? His deposer burned equally, and his blade glowed like the stars, and the light that shone form him was gleaming through all the old scars on the face of Reality. He could not be allowed to live.)

***

Liriel hopped backward and the Ultima Weapon thudded into the ground, its point cleaving a great gash in the pavement. Her lunge was just barely met by Cloud's recovery, and she disengaged and stepped further back onto the bridge, breaths coming evenly and pearly teeth showing slightly. He shifted to a one-handed grip and met her next swing in a smooth parry. His riposte grated on her armour and she lunged at him again. Fast.

He threw himself into another furious block, making far more use of strength than finesse. The weapons met at the hilts and he shoved her back against the bridge. With a brief, animal cry she rolled back over the edge. Cloud vaulted after her, hoping to pin her, but she twisted like a cat and was running for the courtyard even before she hit the ground. He chased her into the square and swung at her again.

A young girl, playing with a kitten on the pavement, screamed as the blades clashed. The few passers-by scattered like leaves in the autumn wind. Cries rang out from windows, and faces peered out of doorways and peepholes. Tifa and Yuffie looked down from the bridge, one shaking, the other still as a watchful hawk. Nanaki's head rested on his paws, beside Tifa's elbows, and Barrett's huge bulk was behind them, blotting out the dying sun. Thus the audience was gathered in time to see the first blood spilt.

It was Liriel. An extravagant swing from Cloud opened the pale skin of her bare forearm, just above her gauntlet. She gasped almost ferally and passed the Equaliser to her left hand, letting the blood drip down to the ground as her arm trailed out behind her back. They gazed at each other again. The shock of red alongside her black-and-white costume made her look solid for the first time - previously, he could have been duelling a shadow. Sweat slicked his hair and dampened his clothing. Cloud lowered his blade.

"Had enough?" he asked, loudly enough for all the onlookers to hear.

"Never," Liriel's voice rasped, and she shifted her knees into a fighting stance. And she attacked again.

***

I sidestepped and then swung at her unguarded flank, but she whipped her blade round in yet another lightning-fast parry. Her riposte was equally quick, and I gritted my teeth as a wicked cut opened along my torso. Shallow, thank the Gods, but oh that sword was sharp.

What was it anyway? We circled, and I stole a few glances at it in the light of the dying sun. It gleamed blue-violet in the pale light, I fancied I could see the paving stones through it. Enchanted glass? Shaped Materia? I tore my mind away from it and launched a fleche at the spidery figure behind the sword, and I was rewarded by another gasp, the sigh of tormented leather, and a stream of blood that ran down her scabbard in a thin trickle.

The onlookers jumped, or cawed, or shrieked, each to their own temperament. One growled harshly, I knew who. I knew who whistled, long and low, and who 'eeked' like a startled bird, and who was the one of the dozens of spectators who held to a tangible, perceptible silence. I bit my tongue as I felt sweat dripping into my wound. I could have healed it; maybe I should have healed it; at any other time I would have healed it, but somehow I knew that to do so would devalue this strange battle. Something unfathomable was at stake here. Another will was challenging my own, and blade must meet blade, not some cowardly spell or Materia-trick. The unwritten law of the warrior.

Our swords met again, and again and again, sparks dancing off them like teardrops. My strength drove her back a step, but her blade kept cutting closer to me as if my skin was attracting its cold touch. The courtyard was slicked with red, both sunset-shadow and life-blood, and I moved, and swung, and parried, watching her sway like a viper.

The smooth rhythm of her combat dance broke past my defences just as the sun slipped over the horizon. I felt her cold fang sliding into my ribcage, and the sky grew dim.

***

The existence of Liriel is not the only defence the Spheres have against anarchy. Some things have been created stable; the worlds that spin forever around kindly suns, the creatures that kill, and eat, and are killed in perpetual patterns, and the skies that are light and dark in equal measure. The most subtle, and the strongest, of these little checks is the soul of mortal man.

Humanity naturally balances itself; people are far more stable in their ways than Gods. They know better the fine art of compromise. And they naturally incline to the centre ground in their lives, works and politics. Above all, they can love.

This is extraordinary. Oh, for sure, the Gods love - they love concepts and ideologies, and on occasion each other, but that is nothing compared to human love. To love a god is to love perfection, a flawless being of infinite wisdom and cosmic grace. To love a mortal means to accept fault and blindness and inconsistency with open arms and a wide smile, without logic or method, using pure human instinct to perform the highest of balancing acts. To love a mortal is to take the rough, the smooth, and everything in between.

Can a god even understand that? Understand the passions, the energy, the warmth, the very fire of life?

(Beings like Liriel haven't a clue. They're autonomous, aloof and completely tight-arsed. Actually even noticing that the webs of Humanity are as complex and finely balanced as the webs of Reality she is sworn to is completely beyond her. Noticing they _exist_ is beyond her. Plato the Chicken has travelled enough in Assiah to know how to ride the kickback. But some people haven't…)

***

Liriel touched the point of the Equaliser to the earth and contemplated the broken body at her feet. The town was silent, or almost. The only perceptible sounds were the whisper of the sea, the sighing of the breeze, and the soft but rapid footsteps of a nonexistent but rapidly retreating chicken. Indeed, Liriel didn't even know she was there until she landed on her back.

Plato had seen; it was what he was there for. She had arisen and flexed and glided off the bridge, thrusting her feet out in a tuck that caught Liriel square in the small of her back. They fell to the floor, Tifa above her and pounding, rolling, rending flesh and tearing leather. The Equaliser grated on the paving, constrained to impotence by Tifa's forceful knee on Liriel's left hand. As she flailed under the weight of a woman stronger than her in every way, Tifa pinned her totally, long legs curling savagely around Liriel's helpless limbs. She threw her head back and uttered a cry wilder than any human noise, a cry of agony, sorrow, violence and hopelessness that rang through the Spheres and rebounded, returning to her in a pulse of raw energy. Wings of fire rose up around her, heating her blood, lighting her eyes, arcing to the sky and unfolding, spreading flames across the ground. Liriel's splutters echoed off the burning ground as her skin melted back and her hair fell to ash and was borne up on the airflow. The blue heart of the fireball passed over the sword-hilt and charred the very bones from the pistol-grip, then folded away with the light and the feathers, till there was nothing there but blackened ground.

Tifa released the blighted corpse and took instead the rosy form of the sleeping warrior, softly brushing his hair back from his brow. She whispered his name, then three further words, and she smiled as he opened his eyes.

***

A little while later she helped me to rise, and we stood there together in the evening glow, gazing at the devastation around us. All was ash and darkness, but for one small splash of iridescent colour. Her hand touched my shoulder as I bent and took the strange blade in my hand. I could feel it writhing between my fingers, spinning like a compass, seeking a new target. "What is this?" I whispered.

"That," said a voice, "is the Equaliser."

I looked up, and saw a small but confident brown chicken stepping into the black circle, somehow creating a solemnity that overruled the incongruity of his appearance. He looked me straight in the eye and shook his head. "It is not for you. It would destroy you for your virtues as soon as for your vices. It's not meant for a human world."

I released it, and before my eyes it fell away to dust, shard by incredible shard, until it was gone. I stood up and took her by the hand as the little bird walked away from us.

He paused under the bridge, and a whirling vortex, dark and twisting as Odin's cave, opened before him. He looked over his shoulder at me and said "Human. Live on. Find your own equality. The strength you have, and the love you have, are quite enough to heal many broken facets of Reality." With that, he was gone.

My breath came hoarse in wonderment as I looked at the gathered crowd, still unmoving, as lost in thought as I. Our eyes met somehow, and we shared another smile.

*****


End file.
